After a morning hanging out with Adria and helping her get ready to do her own podcast I couldn’t let her go with out you getting a chance to hear a little from her and some of the things she’s interested in. I hope you enjoy Adria’s podcasting debut and stay tuned for links to her upcoming podcasts.
I had the wonderful opportunity this morning of interviewing Eric Odier-Fink of The Justice Clothing Company. Eric graciously gave me a bit of his time to answer some questions about Justice Clothing, Sweatshops, Unions and Fair Trade.
Usually fronts for organizations that feed and cloth people
It’s Recycling!
It’s not contributing to the sweatshop industry
The Balance is that people need to work and somethings will need to be bought new, That’s where Justice Clothing comes in.
26:00 Why pay more Money for fair trade clothing?
Sustainable economies
Why Not to Contribute to Walmart (articles 1, 2)
29:45 An appeal to people of Faith
“Buying sweatshop stuff is against my religion”
“You know your buying stuff that is moral”
* Want to Read some more about this? Eric Suggests:
one I will point out is a magazine-size booklet published by the Progressive Jewish Alliance called “No Schvitz”– it’s a great primer on the history and current situation with sweatshops, with a focus on Jewish involvement (on all sides).
Unfortunately, I feel it is necessary to start with a disclaimer about the video I am about to show you. This is not a video that will suddenly convince you to care about where what you buy is made. If your hoping to argue and be defensive about your purchases and consumerism, then you’ll probably have a fine time with this video. You’ll say the workers in the video complain too much, you’ll point out that it’s not much worse then plenty of USA working conditions, you’ll say at least they have a job and food, etc. And you’ll be right.
But, you’ll also find a time or two in this video that you’ll think to yourself about how frustrating it would be to be in their position. You’ll think for a moment about how some of that is not fair. I challenge you to hold on to those thoughts, and just ponder them for a little bit.
Please post your responses and thoughts below. And please refrain from arguementative words about what the video shows.
When you see the term on a McDonalds brochure you know something is up. I don’t frequent the golden arches much, but I was in there a couple weeks ago and I saw this brochure.
“We Share One Community: Socially Responsible Neighbors”
I’m not posting to bash on McD’s (that’s what you’d expect from me though isn’t it?). I think it’s great to see a company like this and others (Walmart, Coca-Cola, Starbucks, etc) put out Press Release and make statements in the direction of Social Responsibility. I applaud those efforts, but I want to caution us as well. I think we’ve seen countless times (look into statements from companies about stopping sweatshops) that just because they make a statement or give their word does not mean a change has happened. There are times when all we can do is take their word for it, but let’s also be all the more aware when the news reveals that they have not been keeping their commitments.
When Social Responsibility becomes the buzz word everyone will jump on board, at least in word, not necessarily in deed. You see being Social Responsibility cost your company money. Paying garment workers more cost more. Treating animals humanely cost more. All these things our money lost from the company and any good economist knows that money is the bottom line. Let’s just be aware.
On that note here is an exciting company, Maggie’s Organic that looks like they are doing things right. Watch the Video.
After writing my post about shopping I realized it was important to promote to folks an alternative to the Walmart’s and other companies with inhumane practices that we learn about.
I present:
I’ve talked with the owner and he seems pretty cool. I’m actually going to email him again and see if he would be interested in doing an interview with me that I could podcast. Is there an interest in that?
I think I’m going to start a seperate page on the iamnotashamed.net site to serve as a store front for Fair Trade items, specifically clothing and other necessities.
